


Some Flowers Can't Help But Bloom Late

by Crollalanza



Series: Marshmallows, Siblings and Drums [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Mention of Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 04:36:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3882565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crollalanza/pseuds/Crollalanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Pick your fights,’ her mum had told her.<br/>And looks ain’t a fight worth pickin’, Saeko thinks.<br/>Staring at herself in the mirror, black tangled hair not shiny like her mum’s, but dull and brittle, she wonders if she’ll ever bloom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Flowers Can't Help But Bloom Late

**Author's Note:**

> This has been written for Saeko's birthday. She is Karasuno's Goddess and I love her.
> 
> This follows the same canon as my other stories about the Tanaka siblings, so there's a little bit of angst. :(

“I’m ugly,” she says, peering at her reflection mournfully.

“It’s just a graze, Saeko-chan,” soothes her mother, and kisses the top of her head.  They both stare into the mirror, Saeko seeing the contrast very clearly between her ill formed features and her mum’s delicious prettiness. “Maybe stop climbing trees for a while, okay.”

Saeko scowls, quite liking the way her eyebrows knot together, then pulls her face straight. She hadn’t meant the graze on her chin, but rather the over large teeth in her too-wide mouth and the eyes much too big for her face.

(“You look like a fish! SaeKoi! SaeKoi!” Hanakawa-kun had yelled at her. And that’s how she’d got the graze, from decking him with one punch, then toppling over from the momentum.)

“Hey, what’s up with my flower?” her dad asks when she troops down the stairs. He’s arrived home earlier than usual and takes her on his knee for the cuddle she knows she’s far too old for but accepts all the same.

“Nothin’,” she replies, and sniffs. “S’just a graze.”

“Glad you’re not crying,” he whispers, and smiles into her hair. “Can’t have tears on your birthday.”

“I ain’t cryin’, Dad. I never cry,” she says stubbornly, and juts out her chin, graze and all, to show him how determined she is.

“You could cover it with a plaster,” he suggests, examining the mark. “Be less noticeable.”

“We’re out,” her mum replies from the kitchen. “I used the last two on Ryuu’s knees. Probably best to let the air get to it. Anyway, who wants special birthday tea with cake and ice-cream?”

Wriggling off his lap, Saeko dashes into the kitchen, and takes her place at the head of the table. (It’s the one day of the year she’s allowed to sit there.)  But although she’s excited because her mum’s prepared all her favourite foods, she eats with her chin propped behind her hand.

“I’m ugly,” she says again when her mum comes in to her bedroom wish her goodnight. “I look like a fish.”

“Is that what the fight was about?”

“There wasn’t a figh-  Oh ...” Her mouth droops a little and she furls her fingers around the quilt cover. “How d’ya know? Did Ryuu tell ya?”

Her shiny black bob of hair frames her face as she shakes her head and Saeko knows Ryuu didn’t sneak because her mum never lies, not to her. “You’ve fallen out of a lot of trees and never landed on your face.”

“Sorry,” she mutters. “Hanakawa said I was ugly. He kept laughing ‘bout my sticky out teeth, said my eyes were too big and ... and ... ”

“Pick your fights,” he mum replies. “Certain things aren’t worth fighting for, and a dumb boy’s opinion is one of them.” Giving her another cuddle, she strokes her hair and cheeks, staring straight into her daughter’s eyes. “Some flowers can’t help but bloom late, Saeko-chan. But when they bloom, it’s the most beautiful sight in the world.”

 

***

Her thirteenth birthday isn’t the first she’s celebrated without her mum, but it’s the first she feels most keenly. When she turned twelve, the family had still been in the first throes of grief, turning to each other for solace. Above all the family had still been a family, but now it’s her and Ryuu, ‘cause their dad don’t give a fuck.

(‘Fuck!’ She uses the word under her breath at home when he’s around, delighting in it, because he never swears, and has told her more than once that he will wash out her mouth with soap if she curses.)

She gets her own breakfast, stands at the counter eating a bowl of cereal and flips through the pages of a magazine. Waiting.  Her dad says nothing, doesn’t even tell her off for not sitting down.  He’s quiet, sullen, reading the paper as he gulps down a cup of hot black coffee.

“You’ll be late for Little Tykes,” he snaps when Ryuu trots into the room.

“Uh ... I’ll run,” he says, snatching his bento box from the fridge. He’s about to leave the kitchen, when he turns back. “Happy Birthday, Neesan.”

She looks up, just in time, because he’s throwing something her way. It’s small and so badly wrapped that the gift slips out of paper and onto the floor before she can catch it.

“S’not much,” he mutters, “but ya like pink, and ... uh ...”

He couldn’t finish his sentence ‘cause she was hugging him, rubbing his head with her hand and giggling at the array of pink ribbons, hair ties and slides spilt onto the floor. 

“I’m gonna wear this one all day!” she declares, selecting a tie decorated with pink strawberries.

“Hell, I forgot!”

 “Don’t matter, Dad.” She shrugs and starts to tie up her hair, black ponytail swinging past her shoulders, and shoves her brother away from her.“See ya later, Ryuu-chan. Have a good day, yeah.”

He rushes out, slamming the door hard behind him, but her Dad doesn’t holler out a reproof, just closes his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters and pushes out a chair with his foot, beckoning her to sit, so she does because for once he’s in a conciliatory mood. His hand edges across the table, and for a moment, she thinks he’s going to clasp her hand. So she smiles. But something changes his mind, and he returns to his paper.

“I’ll take you both out at the weekend,” he tells her. “Anywhere you want, Saeko-chan.”

“S’cool. Thanks,” she murmurs.

But when the weekend comes, he’s called in for an extra shift and the promised birthday treat never happens. A week later, he hands her some yen inside a garage-bought birthday card, and won’t quite meet her eyes.

***

All the other kids in her class go away for Golden Week, but the Tanakas never do. It’s her Dad’s busiest time, driving trains to get people to their destination, so she and Ryuu have always stayed in Miyagi. She doesn’t mind; it means she doesn’t have to invite people to a party, only to watch them squirm for an excuse.

(It was different when her mum was alive, the house was full of laughter and song, now silence and scowls punctuate the slanging matches.)

Saeko’s had enough of school rules. She jacks up her skirt, using staples, leaves one side of her shirt hanging out the waistband, and refuses to tighten her tie. The other girls talk about her, not just behind her back, but mostly in corners. It’s ‘cause she’s got boobs. They say she pads her bra for attention, flaunting herself so the boys will like her.

“Ugly and scrawny,” she hears them laugh in the toilets. “It’s the only way they’ll look at her.”

‘Pick your fights,’ her mum had told her. _And looks ain’t a fight worth pickin’,_ she thinks. Staring at herself in the mirror, black tangled hair not shiny like her mum’s, but dull and brittle, she wonders if she’ll ever bloom.

On her sixteenth birthday, she closets herself in her bathroom and hacks at her hair. She cuts the braid first, then gives herself a fringe, a choppy fringe, basing her look on the wisp of a memory.

But it’s a parody. She’ll never be pretty like _her_. Saeko Tanaka’s just a girl grappling for attention. She ain’t kind and gentle. She ain’t loving. She’s mean and angry.

(So very angry all the time.)

The next day, she calls into the chemist and buys peroxide.

“What the hell have you done?” her dad yells.

“What’s it to you?” she shouts back and wrenches away from his grasp.

Ryuu’s impressed when he gets home. “Whoa, Neesan, it looks cool,”

“Thank-ya, Ryuu.  I figured I needed a new look for High School as the old one ain’t working.”

He nods, but she’s pretty sure he doesn’t understand. What does Ryuu know about fitting in, or makin’ a statement? He’s got volleyball.

The other girls at school gape when they see her. They’re too shocked to even whisper now, and the voices she hears, whilst the words are still scathing, are underpinned with a small amount of admiration.

“D-did you get that done at a salon?” Minu Hazaki,  a girl who’s even shorter than Saeko, asks.

She has blue clips pinning back a thick thatch of hair that she’s always complaining about.

“Nope. I did it myself,” Saeko replies.

“And your mum ... uh ...” She breaks off, horrified by the slip of the tongue, then swallows. “Your dad didn’t mind.”

“Ah, he shouted a bit, but it’s my hair, I told him,” she says nonchalantly, but instinctively touches her arm where his fingers had left dark bruises now fading to yellow.

***

Her twenty-second birthday, and Saeko gets back to an empty house. It’s been a bitch of a day, first at the cafe, then at rehearsal, and all she wants is a long bath and sleep. But she should make some food for her dad, and make a start on the laundry before Ryuu gets back from training tomorrow.

Her phone beeps and despite her exhaustion, she smiles when she sees his message.

_‘Happy Birthday, Neesan  present 2morrow.’_

_‘Cool. How’s training?  You getting enough to eat?’_

He takes his time replying, and she can imagine him laughing at her concern. ‘ _Foods good Yacchan can really cook. Trainings cool.’_

_‘You played Nekoma yet?’_

_‘Uh huh. We beat them. Was close tho.’_

_‘Great._ ’ And then because she knows he’s probably tired, or hungry, or maybe about to play cards she taps in a goodbye ending with a kiss.

The front door opens as she’s re-reading her earlier messages, giggling over one, which wasn’t entirely appropriate. “You better live up to that promise, Keish,” she mutters and smirks.

“Hey!”

“Huh?”  Turning, Saeko sees her dad walking into the kitchen. He’s carrying a plastic bag and has a tentative smile on his face.

“Do you have plans tonight?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “Keishin said he’d take me out when he got back. Minu’s working. She shrugs. “The girls at the cafe gave me a cake. I’m fine.”

“Then ...” He pulls out several small cardboard boxes, boxes full of rice, and noodles, a chicken dish, some tempura, and lastly two bottles of beer. “How about we have a meal together, flower?”

And she’s so surprised at the gesture, at the way his hands are trembling as if he expects her to say no that she can’t say a word. She swallows at the unexpected, nearly forgotten pet-name. As the memories of much happier times flash before her, the only way she knows to block the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks is to smile.

“I’d like that.”

He gasps, and there are tears in _his_ eyes. “You look so much like your mother when you smile,” he whispers, and holding his daughter at arms’ length, he stares as if seeing her clearly for the first time. “My beautiful girl.”

Somewhere in the distance, she hears a gentle laugh, and a voice whispering, “Some flowers can’t help but bloom late, Saeko-chan.”


End file.
